Wednesday, 8 May 2013

In 1917, the Comité
Officiel Belge
pour l’Angleterre, overseeing more than 250,000 Belgian refugees in
Britain, published a report on 3 years in exile during the First World War. The
document is the only one which details the British factories employing
Belgian workers and the Belgian factories owned and run by Belgians in
Britain.

With a work force of about 60,000 men, it should come as no
surprise that the Belgians in Britain contributed heavily to the war industry.
Vickers in Barrow-in-Furness employed 5,800 Belgians, Jackson in Salisbury
nearly 2,000 and Armstrong
Whitworth in Gateshead and Glasgow together another 1,400.

The website ‘Médecins de la
Grande Guerre’ covers a lot of ground about these Belgian labourers and
Belgian labour colonies in Britain, including as well places such as the Pelabon
factory in Richmond (what subsequently became the Ice Rink) and Kryn&Lahy
in Letchworth.

The seminar will provide both a generic historical background to
the story of the Belgian labourers in Britain, using documents of the time,
and a more detailed look into how they related to which home front (British,
Belgian, Belgian in Britain).

Monday, 6 May 2013

Two days ago, Christian De Duve, aged 95, ended his life. Christian De Duve was born in Thames Ditton on 2 October 1917.

The son of Belgian refugees spent the first few years of his life in the area between SW London and Surrey. The family returned to Belgium in 1920, which is slightly peculiar as there had been a government-funded organised return of the Belgians from mid December 1918 until mid March 1919 (with an official end to the repatriation on 4 May 1919).

Together with Albert Claude and George E. Palade, he was awarded a shared Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1974. The team discovered the functioning of lysosomes and peroxisomes in cell structures.

On 1 April 2013, Christian had fallen and it had taken him hours before he managed to get any help. In an interview a week later he announced he would terminate his life himself soon. He did so on 4 May. With De Duve arguably the most renowned Belgian refugee still alive died.

Since 1988 De Duve was a member of the Royal Society. Here he talks about his parents, Antwerp and his birthplace.